


‘i never meant to hurt you’

by alpacasandravens



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, from the finale, very one-sided wayleska
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens
Summary: Jim saves Barbara Lee, Jeremiah lying defeated on the Ace Chemicals catwalk next to them. Bruce watches over him until backup arrives.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	‘i never meant to hurt you’

**Author's Note:**

> For @steveuschrist !! For suggesting a scene in the finale where Jeremiah apologizes for hurting Bruce. This isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but enjoy!!  
> (unbetaed and I’m sick so no promises on coherency)

It should be quiet. After everything is over, after Barbara Lee is safe and Jeremiah -- Jay -- whatever he’s calling himself is on the ground, it should be quiet. The scene should cut away.

But that’s not quite how it works. After all, when have things ever been so simple? It’s been so long since Bruce was in Gotham, but he remembers things like the Court of Owls, things that just kept coming no matter how many times he thought he’d outwitted them. It only made sense, then, that Jeremiah wouldn’t just stop after a batarang to the hand and another to the side of his head. 

Jim is gone, waiting outside for backup. He hadn’t wanted his daughter to stay in that awful place, and Bruce couldn’t blame him. But that does mean that Bruce is alone guarding Jeremiah, and he doesn’t like that at all. Barbara Lee wasn’t the only one this factory had traumatized. Far from it.

Jeremiah drags himself into a sitting position from where he’d been lying on the walkway. He’s laughing softly, under his breath, and staring down into the swirling green pool of chemicals.

Bruce watches, but he makes no move to go to him. Jeremiah is leaning against the support of the walkway’s railings (as though he’d forgotten what happened the last time he trusted his weight to those flimsy things), and without them Bruce is sure he’ll fall over again. Blood trickles out of the cut on his head, running through Jeremiah’s thick white makeup and sticking to what little hair he has left.

“I know it’s you,” Jeremiah says, sing-song. He’s still looking at the chemicals, but Bruce knows he’s talking to him. “You came back to me.”

Bruce doesn’t respond. It’s better that way, he thinks. Better Jeremiah realize that Bruce hasn’t come back for him, doesn’t return that all-consuming obsession Jeremiah calls love. (It doesn’t matter that he’d loved him, once. It’s been so long now.)

“I knew you couldn’t really leave me. We’re bound together.”

They are, Bruce thinks, but not in the way Jeremiah would like them to be. They’re bound in the way that Jeremiah had made them be, that night in the alley. Running into this factory. Away from the burned out shell of Wayne Manor he’d left behind him. 

“Why are you hiding in the shadows, Brucie?” Jeremiah asks with an exaggerated pout. “You’ve come all this way for me!”

“I didn’t come back for you.” Bruce deepens his voice, using what he’s come to recognize as his Batman voice, even if the Batman thing is relatively new.

“I’m the only one here!” Jeremiah giggles wetly.

“What do you want, Jeremiah.”

He clicks his tongue. “No, no, Jeremiah isn’t here. He’s down there!” He points to the chemicals below him and whistles in a terrible imitation of the sound of falling. “Jeremiah fell into the chemicals, and what came out was something… new.”

“And what do you  _ want _ ?”

“The only thing I’ve ever wanted.” Jeremiah smiles so wide Bruce is afraid his mouth will crack on the edges, that he’ll just keep smiling and smiling as his face breaks open. “You.”

“You don’t know me,” Bruce says, because he’s terrified, and he’s saddened. He’d meant to help Gotham and instead his return had awakened a monster.

“I know you, Bruce, of course I know you. You’re like gravity, the bond connecting us is the strongest force in the world.”

Bruce wants to point out that Jeremiah is a scientist and he should know gravity is a relatively weak force, but he doesn’t, because he isn’t here to have a conversation with this madman. He’s here to wait for backup, to ensure Jeremiah gets arrested and brought to Arkham where he can get the treatment he so clearly needs. 

“I am not Bruce Wayne.” Bruce moves into the light, just enough for his batsuit to be illuminated. For Jeremiah to see the armor and to miss the face he would certainly recognize. “I am the Batman.”

“Aww, Brucie, you got an alter ego!” Something in Jeremiah’s eyes softens, and if it wasn’t for the manic light that doesn’t quite leave them, Bruce could almost believe Jeremiah really does love him. “I always thought Nygma was crazy with that Riddler schtick, but if you’ve got one… I could be something. Then we’d match.”

“You need help, Jeremiah.”

“Not Jeremiah, hmmm. Jester? No, no… Joker. That’s it. You can be the Batman, and I’ll be the Joker, but we’ll both know it’s just us underneath.”

“Why did you kidnap that girl?” Bruce asks. Maybe he can get some kind of useful information out of Jeremiah, something that isn’t just obsession and laughter.

“I was… improvising. After you didn’t come to see my spectacle, I had to get creative. And I  _ knew _ you’d come for me here.”

Bruce sighs. Where is the backup? The GCPD had always been understaffed and somewhat incompetent, but he’d hoped they’d gotten better in the last decade. Apparently not. 

“This isn’t how you get me to love you. This isn’t how you get  _ anyone _ to love you.”

Jeremiah laughs a little. “You already love me, Brucie. Just like I already love you.” He sounds so sure, like he’s informing Bruce of a fact.

What the hell. Nothing he’s saying is getting through to Jeremiah, so he might as well play along. “This isn’t how you treat someone you love. You don’t hurt them, and you don’t hurt the people they care about.”

Jeremiah looks like he’s been slapped. No, Bruce thinks, if he’d been slapped Jeremiah would just be happy Bruce had touched him. Now, he looks on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Brucie. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I  _ never _ want to hurt you, I just… I just wanted to see you. Even recreating your parents’ death, all I wanted was to be important to you. I’m doing all this for you, don’t you see? I always have been!”

“I don’t want you to.” This -- Jeremiah had said all this before. Over and over, ‘this is all for you.’ And every time, it hits Bruce how many people Jeremiah is hurting for his sake. How he can’t see that everything he does is driving Bruce away from him. 

“He’s wrong he’s wrong he doesn’t mean that he can’t --” Jeremiah starts to mutter to himself. “I just have to make him see. That’s it.” He raises his voice, talking to Bruce once more, as the factory door creaks open and six GCPD officers pour in. “I’ll do better for you, Batsy. Next time! It’ll be bigger, better… funnier…”

Jeremiah laughs as the officers cuff him, high and manic. He might say something else, but Bruce leaves, making sure to let the trapdoor he entered through clang shut. He isn’t there to see all the officers at once turn their heads his way, though they see nothing but shadows. He isn’t there to hear Jeremiah laugh as he clutches the batarang still through his hand, obsessed and manic and in love.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, leave kudos or a comment below!


End file.
